When it comes to PPC, I’m totally lost. I don’t like it … I don’t get it … and I’m not good at it. All of which is pretty odd for someone who setup a Google AdWords account for his wife about 6-7 years ago and has been managing it ever since. Well, to say that I’ve been “managing” it is a real stretch:

I haven’t logged in to the account in a year or so, aside from having to go in to update credit card payment information. I’ve broken the first cardinal rule of PPC advertising: I set it then forgot it.

When setting it up, I’m sure I made all kinds of mistakes with keywords, ads, ad groups, and even campaign organization.

I did no competitive research to see what the overall landscape was and is.

Aside from seeing how many clicks we’ve paid for, I have no idea about the results of years of PPC (mis)management.

Basically, I should probably not be allowed within 500 feet of a PPC management console. I’m the poster child for how not to do PPC.

Good News!

I have friends that are really good at PPC. And earlier this summer, I struck a deal with one of them: Todd Mintz. Todd does a lot of blogging: for SEMPDX, on Search Engine Journal, on Search Engine People and some other places at times, too. Dude needs content.

So, the deal was like this: I give Todd complete access to my wife’s AdWords account and carte blanche to make any changes that he would recommend if we were paying clients. Todd cleans up the account and gets to write articles about how bad I am at PPC.

Pretty fair deal, don’t you think?

The point of all this is mainly to let you know that the first of Todd’s articles was published this week on Search Engine People: